


Each Lovely Meaning

by starstrider



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluffy, M/M, accidental roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrider/pseuds/starstrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The barista is leaning across the counter. His checkered shirt is rolled up to his elbows. He's flashing a smile broader than daylight, and his dark hair is falling flawlessly across his brow, and Jehan just <i> knows. </i><br/>This is going to be problematic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. keats, lemon cake, and the futility of cute baristas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLittlePoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittlePoet/gifts).



> just a thing i'm writing for steph because she deserves all the love in the world. it'll probably be about seven or eight chapters long. expect lots of fluff and cupcakes and poetry.

There's no one at the counter when Jehan walks up, so he contents himself with eyeing the slices of lemon cake behind the backlit glass. They're carefully iced along one smooth edge, the cake yellow in that perfect way of anything faux-lemon-flavored. Jehan exhales a quiet sigh. He has too much of a sweet tooth. What would Combeferre say if he knew that Jehan was about to buy himself lemon cake for dinner?

“What can I do for you?”

Jehan looks up. The barista is leaning across the counter. His checkered shirt is rolled up to his elbows. He's flashing a smile broader than daylight, and his dark hair is falling flawlessly across his brow, and Jehan just _knows._

This is going to be problematic.

“Uh, I – I was wondering where the bathroom is?” Jehan stutters.

The barista doesn't even sit up. He seems to glance quizzically at the dirt that coats Jehan's arms from fingertip to elbow, but nothing in his gaze suggests judgement. Instead, there's laughter in his voice when he says, “To the right of the stairs,” and tilts his head in that direction.

Jehan turns on his heel and skitters toward the bathroom and doesn't breathe until he's in there, with the door shut and the sink turned on to a full blast of hot water. He yanks the twigs out of his ponytail and then dunks his hands into the spray until the color of his arms matches his furiously blushing cheeks. He sighs at his reflection in the mirror as he dries off, wishing that his abundance of freckles would hide the blush.

He takes a few deep breaths. He's going to go out there, and he's going to order an iced coffee with extra milk, and then he's going to sit down at a table and read his copy of Keats, and everything is going to be okay.

But then he leaves the bathroom and no, nothing is okay, because the sight of the barista is already making Jehan's stomach flutter.

Tensing himself, he marches up to the counter, but at that exact point the barista ducks down for something and Jehan is left standing there, staring at the menu without actually reading it, his mouth pressed into a firm line as his fists clench the edge of the counter.

The barista does not emerge.

Does it really take so long to figure out the goings-on underneath the counter? Jehan clears his throat.

A pair of curious eyes appears. “Oh, sorry!” the barista says, springing up to his full height before leaning his elbows on the counter and looking at Jehan as if he's about to share a vital secret. “What would you like to order?”

“An iced coffee, please,” Jehan somehow manages, trying not to notice the width of his shoulders or the sheen of his loose, short curls. He finally catches a glimpse of the nametag. It reads _Courfeyrac._

 _Courfeyrac_ , thinks Jehan, and the name hums in his brain like a melody.

Courfeyrac grabs a cup and bends his face over it, the tip of a Sharpie poised near its surface, and Jehan is almost startled when he lifts his face to look directly into Jehan's eyes. “What's your name?” He has dark, lovely eyes, eyes the color of autumn nights and coffee with no milk.

Jehan slides his money, counted out in exact change, toward Courfeyrac. “Jean? Jean Prouvaire?” He says it like a question, like he wouldn't mind if the Courfeyrac forgot it altogether.

“Oh,” Courfeyrac starts, eyes widening. “You're the gardener! The one working on the flowers out front.”

Jehan's face lifts into a small smile at that, and his heart gives a tiny thrill. “Yeah,” he says simply, and they both pause to look out the front windows at the plants lining the entrance to the shop. Mr. Valjean wanted them there, as if they would attract more customers, but the original planter did a poor job and got fired. Or something like that. Jehan isn't entirely sure about what led to his being hired, but he's glad to have some sort of income, however meager. One does not simply make a living off of poetry and flowers.

But Courfeyrac doesn't know that, even though he's the one making a living off of serving coffee. “They look really nice,” he says. “I saw you working out there all morning.”

Jehan looks up sharply, but Courfeyrac has already whisked away to make his iced coffee. Unsure of what to do, Jehan takes a single step back to the case of desserts. He glares resignedly at the lemon cake, then turns away to find a seat just as the blender begins to roar.

He picks a spot near the window, a straight shot across from the counter, where he can glance outside and see how his flowers are doing. As if they've changed much in the past few minutes. He slaps his volume of poems onto the table, but then gets distracted by the gleam of the sun on all the New York metal.

He hears his name, called from the counter.

What he finds there is an iced coffee with extra milk, a slice of lemon cake, and no Courfeyrac.

Jehan looks around, his mouth open in confusion, but the barista is nowhere to be seen. “I didn't order lemon cake,” he says aloud. The other patrons of the cafe seem to not hear him; if they do, they simply cast him curious glances.

Jehan glances down at the dessert, laid neatly next to a silver fork.

“Did anybody...?” he begins, but then gives up, shrugs, and takes both the coffee and the cake back to his seat.

He doesn't see the note on the napkin until he almost uses it to mop up the coffee he's sloshed onto his book. The words are scrawled in black across the grainy white paper.  
_it's on me. - courf_

He stares at it for a moment, feeling something blooming in his chest. Then he folds it neatly, tucks it into his pocket, and goes to get another napkin.

Well, not before taking a massive bite of lemon cake.


	2. corned beef, sunsets, and how to not stand up for yourself

Jehan can't stop thinking about poetry.

It's a usual thing, actually. His head is almost always filled with quatrains and slant rhymes waiting to be jotted down in one of his errant notebooks - there's always one in his pocket or under his pillow or stuck in the waistband of his pants. He likes to write poems about the subtle longing that tugs in his chest whenever he sees the way Marius and Cosette look at each other, or about the way the streets of New York glisten in the sunshine after a spot of rain, or about the way it feels to be up to the elbows in earth as he works in his garden.

Tonight, his thoughts linger on the guy from the cafe.

“Courfeyrac,” he pronounces out loud, then gets embarrassed and drops his face into his pillow.

Jehan has a habit of noticing beautiful people and acknowledging them quietly in his head, his heart expanding to include their smile or their eyes or the slope of their shoulders. Even if nothing ever comes of it, Jehan appreciates beauty in any form. And there was just something right that he felt when he looked at Courfeyrac – something that made sense suddenly, as if being looked at by this random handsome coffee shop boy made everything wrong seem bearable.

And, more importantly, he keeps wondering how the lemon cake incident came about. Did he somehow notice Jehan looking at the desserts? How could he have been that observant? And now Jehan keeps seeing, in his head, Courfeyrac's ivory skin and dark eyes, like the contrasting keys of a piano, and his broad smile and full lips and -

“Courfeyrac,” he says again, his voice muffled by the pillow, and that's when he realizes that he's no longer alone in the apartment.

“What?” asks Combeferre, shutting the apartment door behind him.

Jehan waits for his immediate blush – damn how easily embarrassed he is - to go away before he raises his face from the pillow and peers at Combeferre. “What? Nothing.” He notices the teetering binders balanced in Combeferre's arms. “You look hassled.”

Combeferre lets out a huff, slamming the binders down on the coffee table and ripping off the strap of his messenger bag. “I am hassled,” he declares, as if acknowledging his stress is the first step to making it go away, as if it is a medical problem that needs diagnosing. Joly must be rubbing off on him. He drops onto the couch and leans his head back, closing his eyes. “But first, how was your day?”

It's almost a routine – Jehan gets home first, and Combeferre blows in after being all lawyerly all day, and they talk through the day together. Jehan shoves any thoughts of Courfeyrac out of his head. “Good. I planted those flowers Mr. Valjean wanted.”

“Oh, right – the ones outside the coffee shop?” Combeferre leans forward suddenly and grabs one of Jehan's poetry books off the coffee table.

“Yep,” Jehan continues. “And then I went in to get my iced coffee, with dirt all over my arms, and completely embarrassed myself.”

Combeferre's glasses flash in the sunlight as he glances at Jehan, his lips quirking up into a smile. “Have you had dinner yet? We could go get something.”

Jehan thinks of the lemon cake. “No, I haven't." He waves a hand in the air - there are more important things to talk about. "So what's stressing you out today?”

Combeferre shakes his head. “I'll tell you about it over dinner.”  
____

Five minutes later, they're sitting at a rickety table in the delicatessen under their apartment. The sun is setting, its light slanting through the spaces between buildings, and Jehan is wondering how Combeferre can consider what they're eating “dinner” - two sandwiches piled high with pastrami and corned beef, covered in thick white bread and run through with toothpicks. It's not that they're not delicious – it's just that sandwiches are more of a lunch thing, aren't they? It seems Jehan and Combeferre can't ever agree on what foods are appropriate for each meal. Jehan considers it seriously as he crunches on a pickle. He's thinking of eating zebra cakes for breakfast tomorrow, just to see what Combeferre would say - 

“I've been meaning to talk to you about today," says Combeferre, his eyes focused on Jehan's as he crumples a napkin up in his palm.

Jehan blinks at Combeferre, whose face is badly lit by the single bulb that hangs above their table. His eyes are almost shadowed completely beneath his brow, but Jehan still knows that Combeferre's eyes won't waver from his face. Jehan appreciates being looked at so obviously; he enjoys being seen by someone. But the tone of Combeferre's voice makes him nervous. “Uh, okay?” he says.

“Enjolras and I have his major court case coming up in a few days,” Combeferre begins, shoving a hand through his hair. “And there's so much to prepare for, it just feels like there's not enough time in the day.”

Jehan's worry is growing. “Okay, and?” He snaps his toothpick between his thumb and forefinger, then drops the pieces onto his paper plate.

“He offered to let me move in with him,” Combeferre says, watching Jehan intently. “Just for a little while.”

Jehan swallows the objections that are already rising in his throat. “Uh, okay. That'd be... okay.” He nods. “Yeah, if you really need to do that, you should do it.” He balls up his own napkin and already begins thinking ahead to what it'll be like to live alone for a few days or weeks. He'll finally be able to listen to his classical music without -

“It's just that Enjolras already has a roommate. So... we'd be swapping roommates.”

Jehan blinks. It takes a moment for this to sink in, and then... oh.

“Wait,” says Jehan, and he can tell that his face and neck are getting all splotchy, like they do whenever he's upset. “I'm – I'm not really okay with that.” He stares intently at his napkin, which he has uncrumpled from its ball and begun tearing into strips. He hates himself very much in that moment - for being a pushover, for being too shy to object with more than a lukewarm reaction. Why can't he meet Combeferre's eyes? 

“I didn't think you would,” says Combeferre kindly, as if that makes everything okay. “I mean, I don't have to do this, if it would really bother you that much.” His voice is soft, but it still makes Jehan prickly. What, is this on him now? So now he has to deal with the guilt of holding Combeferre back from this Law Thing of Grave Import?

Jehan exhales in a huff. “This is just a lot to think about all at once, okay? And I – I just... You know how I am with my... anxiety.” This is about as assertive as he can be, so he shuts his mouth.

Combeferre nods at that. “I do know, and I can promise you that Enjolras' roommate is very polite and won't infringe on your personal space -”

Combeferre is still talking, but Jehan's thoughts are wandering. It's not just an issue of personal space. It's that Jehan is comfortable living with Combeferre and knowing him and letting him in, and it took a long time for their friendship to get to that point, and it's not fair that he should just have to rip up all those roots, even if only for a few days. Living with a new roommate is a big thing, and Jehan doesn't even know who his new roommate will be. It's not fair that Combeferre isn't really considering Jehan's mental health – he knows Jehan better than anyone. How is he okay with this?

“Combeferre,” Jehan butts in, and 'Ferre shuts his mouth. “I mean, it's fine if you need to work on your court case. Really, it's okay. Do what you need to do.” He exhales again and sticks his hands under the table, folding them tightly to stop their shaking.

“Are you sure?” Combeferre asks, squinting at Jehan past his glasses, like he's trying to see past the lie. “Just a second ago you said -”

“No, it's fine,” Jehan says. He wonders how confident his voice sounds, and if fake confidence sounds different from the real thing. “Really. Move in with Enjolras. I'll be fine.”

Combeferre watches him for a moment longer, his whole body still. “Well, okay,” he says finally as he reaches for his sandwich. “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

 _Because walking over me always is_ , Jehan thinks venomously, then feels bad for being angry at Combeferre when he was just given several opportunities to say no.

So he just tells his thoughts to shut up as he stares at what's left of his sandwich.


End file.
